1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950
The Western powers pledge cooperation as Moscow breaks the U.S. nuclear monopoly and communists take over China.
President Truman proposes four major courses of action in his inaugural address January 20. Point Four calls for "a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underprivileged areas." Connecticut-born statesman Dean Gooderham Acheson, 55, has succeeded George C. Marshall as secretary of state January 7; Andrei Vyshinsky, 65, succeeds V. M. Molotov as Soviet foreign minister March 4.
Moscow arrests U.S. journalist Anna Louise Strong, charges her with espionage, and deports her in late February. Now 64, she has lived in the Soviet capital for 24 years and consistently expressed pro-Soviet views. An FBI agent hands her a subpoena when she arrives at New York's La Guardia Airport February 23, obliging her to testify before a federal grand jury investigating communism.
A federal jury finds "Axis Sally" guilty of wartime treason March 10 and sentences her to 30 years in prison plus a fine of $10,000 (see 1948). She will serve 12 years in the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderston, W. Va.
The U.S. Senate acts March 10 to broaden the scope of its Rule 22, adopted in 1917 to bring cloture to filibusters. A filibuster has begun February 28, the new Senate majority leader Scott W. Lucas, 56 (D. Ill.) moves that cloture be revoked, Vice-President Alben W. Barkley (D. Ky.) has twice served as majority leader and overrules a parliamentary point of order in a procedural maneuver to support the Lucas motion, but Sen. Richard Russell (D. Ga.) opposed cloture on any debate over proposed civil rights legislation, and the Democratic-controlled Senate supports Russell, voting 46 to 41 to make Rule 22 applicable "to any measure, motion, or other matter before the Senate." Senators from both sides of the aisle have used the filibuster for well over a century to prevent a "tyranny of the majority" and will continue into the 21st century to require a two-thirds majority to invoke cloture, filibustering to block bills and appointments considered by one side or the other to be too "liberal" or too "reactionary."
Freedoms Foundation is founded in March at Valley Forge, Pa., on a 100-acre site adjoining Valley Forge National Historical Park. Headed by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who will remain its chairman until his death in 1969, it has been started with financial backing from Los Angeles advertising man Don Belding; stockbroker and financier E. F. Hutton; and Bedford Hills, N.Y., millionaire Kenneth D. Wells with an avowed purpose to increase understanding of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other fundamentals of the American Way of Life, but it will come under fire in years to come as a promoter of right-wing ideology.
Newfoundland joins the Dominion of Canada March 31 as the tenth province.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) created by a treaty signed at Washington April 4 joins the United States, Canada, Iceland, Britain, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, and Portugal in a pledge of mutual assistance against aggression within the North Atlantic area and of cooperation in military training, strategic planning, and arms production. Incorporating ideas for an Atlantic Community advanced in 1924 by the late geopolitical theorist Halford J. Mackinder, the new treaty organization gives approval to President Truman's Point Four program of technical assistance to aid world peace.
The International Court of Justice of the United Nations hands down its first decision April 9. The court holds Albania responsible for incidents that occurred in the Corfu Channel in 1946 and awards damages to Britain.
The Republic of Eire is formally proclaimed April 18 at Dublin (see 1922). London recognizes Irish independence May 17 but reaffirms the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. Agitation for elimination of the British presence will escalate into violence and continue into the 21st century (see 1969).
The Council of Europe statute signed May 5 at London establishes a Committee of Ministers and a Consultative Assembly with Council headquarters at Strasbourg. Belgium, Denmark, France, Britain, Ireland (Eire), Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden sign the statute and will be joined by Greece, Iceland, and Turkey.
Former Spanish prime minister Niceto Alcalá Zamora dies in exile at Buenos Aires February 18 at age 71; Gen. Henri H. Giraud at Dijon March 11 at age 70, having become a right-wing deputy in France's 2nd Provincial Assembly; former French minister of the interior Louis-Jean Malvy dies at Paris June 9 at age 73.
Soviet authorities officially lift the Berlin blockade May 12, but the Berlin airlift continues until September 30 when it ends after completing 277,264 flights (see 1948). In its final months the planes have been carrying cigars, champagne, and other luxuries as well as necessities (see transportation [Laker Airways], 1966).
The German Federal Republic (West Germany) established May 23 has its headquarters at Bonn.
Hungarian officials arrest foreign minister Laszlo Rajk June 16 on conspiracy charges and begin a wholesale purge of Hungarian communists accused of deviating from pro-Soviet policy (see 1947; 1956).
"We have evidence that in recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR," President Truman announces September 23. A specially modified U.S. B-29 flying off Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula has picked up traces of microscopic particles that contained disintegrating nuclei, and scientists have determined that the invisible grains of matter caught in the plane's sniffer were part of a highly radioactive, eastward-drifting cloud produced by a device exploded August 29 in a desert about 100 miles south of Semipalatinsk. Physicist Igor V. Kurchatov, now 47, has headed the Soviet team that developed the Soviet bomb (see 1945); his team includes chiefly Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, 28, who won a doctorate at age 26, and 1925 German Nobel laureate Gustav Hertz, 62, whose uncle Heinrich Hertz pioneered the wireless in 1887. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reacts to news of the Soviet nuclear explosion by advancing the hands of its "Doomsday Clock" from 7 minutes before midnight to 3 minutes (see 1947; 1953).
The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) is established October 7 under Soviet control with communist Wilhelm Pieck, now 73, as president.
Greece's civil war ends October 16 with the announcement by the communist broadcasting station that open hostilities have terminated after 4 years of bloody conflict that by some estimates has cost the lives of more than 50,000 combatants and left more than 500,000 people temporarily displaced. The Greek Army has used U.S. supplies to clear the mountainous interior of communist strongholds (see Truman Doctrine, 1947), but the country remains bitterly divided.
Poland has a purge in November of prominent members of the United Workers' Party central committee accused of having "Titoist" sympathies (see Tito, 1948).
Israeli voters elect Chaim Weizmann president February 17 and Egypt signs an armistice with Israel February 24 (see 1948). Other Arab nations follow suit, but diplomatic and economic boycotts continue, as do border raids (see 1950).
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is created June 2 by a renaming of the 3-year-old Kingdom of Transjordan, ruled by Abdullah (see 1946; 1951).
China's Chiang Kai-shek resigns his presidency January 21 as Nationalist armies suffer reverses at the hands of the communists, who have taken Suzhou (Suchow) January 10 after a 65-day battle in which they have surrounded and defeated the ineptly commanded Nationalist armies one by one (the Nationalists have lost some 500,000 men along with their equipment). Tianjin (Tientsin) has fallen January 15 after a brief siege, and Chiang loses whole divisions by desertion to the victorious communists; he begins removing his Nationalist forces to Formosa (Taiwan). Beijing (Peking) surrenders January 23, permitting a peaceful turnover of the capital.
Peace negotiations conducted by former Nationalist vice president Li Zong-ren (Li Tsung-jen) go on from February to April, when it becomes clear that no progress can be made; the Nationalists continue to claim that they still have a large army, control more than half the country, and are not about to surrender. Communist forces cross the Yangtze with virtually no opposition, the Nationalists abandon their capital at Chongqing (Chungking) April 23 and move to Guangzhou (Canton), communist forces occupy Nanjing (Nanking) April 24 and Hanzhou (Hankow) in mid-May, Sian in the northwest falls to Gen. Peng Dehuai (Peng Deh-Hwai) May 20, the communists take Shanghai May 25, and U.S. aid to Nationalist China ends August 5 as powerful communist armies proceed to take over provinces in the south and west.
The People's Republic of China is proclaimed at Beijing (Peking) October 1 with Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) as chairman of the central people's administrative council, Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), 51, as premier and foreign minister. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, 35, is a onetime stage and film actress 20 years his junior. Removal of Nationalist forces from the mainland to Taiwan is completed by December 8 (some Nationalists take refuge among hill tribes in the mountainous jungles of Burma, Laos, and northern Thailand, an area that will be known in later years as the Golden Triangle as it becomes the world's largest source of opium and heroin production). Chiang Kai-shek has taken most of the government's gold reserve to Taiwan and puts on a show of military strength at Taipei, vowing to "rescue" mainland China from the communists.
Paris recognizes Vietnamese independence within the French Union March 8 as Paris-educated Saigon lawyer and rubber plantation manager's son Nguyen Huu Tho, 38, leads student demonstrations against French rule (see 1946). The former Nguyen dynasty emperor of Annam, Bao Dai, now 35, has been persuaded to return home and head the state that includes Cochin China, but French forces are fighting Ho Chi Minh's communist guerrillas and France retains the right to maintain military bases (see 1950).
Huk Liberation Army gunmen at Manila kill Aurora Quezon, widow of the first Filipino president, in an attack April 28 (see 1948). The Huks threaten to take the capital city; they control most of central Luzon, the nation's "rice basket," and rule from two provincial capitals, but government agents raid the rebel army's Manila headquarters and arrest its entire political leadership in one night. President Truman authorizes large shipments of military suplies to the government, and Elpidio Quirino wins reelection as president of the Philippines, narrowly defeating former president José Laurel (see 1954).
Siam formally renames herself Thailand May 11 (see 1939).
A United Nations cease-fire in Kashmir ends the fighting that has raged in the region since 1947. India claims dominion over the entire state, Pakistan claims that India has welshed on her pledge to allow Kashmiris a plebiscite (see 1965).
Bhutan and India conclude a treaty in August that permits the latter to take over what heretofore has been Britain's role in managing external Bhutanese affairs (see 1910). India agrees to pay an annual subsidy, as did the British, turns over a strip of land (the Dewangiri) in Assam, and agrees not to interfere with Bhutan's internal affairs.
"Tokyo Rose" goes on trial for treason in July at San Francisco. Los Angeles-born UCLA graduate Iva Toguri D'Aquino, 34, is one of at least a dozen Tokyo radio announcers who were called "Tokyo Rose" by English-speaking listeners in the Pacific during the war. She did the work under pressure from Japanese secret police after being caught in Tokyo at the outbreak of the war, refused to renounce her U.S. citizenship as did two other women announcers (who thus could not be charged with treason), and married a Portuguese national in 1945. Government officials threaten and intimidate defense witnesses, the prosecution bribes a witness to give false testimony and tries to bribe an Associated Press reporter to lie on the witness stand, the trial lasts 13 weeks and costs $750,000, the judge's instructions make it impossible for the jury to acquit, and D'Aquino is found innocent of eight alleged overt acts of treason but guilty on one count of trying to undermine U.S. morale. Sentenced to 6 years in prison, she will serve 6½.
Japan begins training women for service in the nation's diplomatic corps.
Indonesian communist leader Ibrahim Datuk Tan Malaka proclaims himself head of the country, he escapes when the Dutch attack his stronghold at Kediri, but followers of Achmed Sukarno capture him and execute him at Blitar, Java, April 16 at age 54. A roundtable conference on Indonesia convenes at The Hague in August and ends November 2 with an agreement by the Netherlands to transfer sovereignty over her former Dutch East Indies colony (with the exception of western New Guinea [West Irian]) to the new Indonesian republic by December 30 on condition that Dutch investors in the region be guaranteed payment of 4.3 billion guilders (see 1948); Indonesian voters elect Achmed Sukarno president December 16, the Dutch grant independence December 27 after 4 years of hostilities, the United States of Indonesia is formally established with its capital at Jakarta (formerly Batavia), and President Sukarno, now 48, begins an administration that will continue until 1968 (see 1956).
President Truman and some members of his cabinet witness a demonstration in May at Quantico, Va., of eight Marine Corps helicopters that transport 42 fully equipped troops with weapons and supplies from a simulated aircraft carrier deck to a mock landing area (see 1947). The dark-blue fabric-covered HRP-1 Piasecki helicopters deposit their loads, are back in the air within seconds to fetch more loads, and prove to high-ranking officials in the viewing stands that helicopters can play a valuable role in military operations. Engineer Frank Piasecki will build the HUP for the U.S. Navy and the H-21 for the U.S. Army and Air Force before leaving Piasecki Aircraft in 1955 (it will change its name to Vertol in 1956, and Boeing Aircraft will acquire it in 1960; see Chinook, 1961).
The U.S. War Department becomes the Defense Department August 10 under terms of the National Security Act of 1947. The first secretary of defense James V. Forrestal resigned in March with symptoms of nervous exhaustion and depression, entered Bethesda Naval Hospital, and jumped from a window there May 22, dying at age 57.
Judge Harold (Raymond) Medina, 61, presides over the trial of 11 alleged communists in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The defendants have been indicted under the 1940 Alien Registration Act (Smith Act) requiring aliens to be fingerprinted and making it unlawful to advocate overthrow of the U.S. government or belong to any group advocating such overthrow.
New York dancer Paul Draper, 39, and Baltimore-born mouth organ virtuoso Lawrence Cecil "Larry" Adler, 35, sue Hester T. McCullough of Greenwich, Conn., for libel after "Red"-baiting columnist Westbrook Pegler has picked up her December 1948 letter in the daily Greenwich Time alleging that they were "pro-Communist in sympathy" and "exponents of a line of thinking directly opposed to every democratic principle upon which our great country has been founded" (see Trumbo, 1947). The trial will end in a hung jury next May, the case will be dismissed in September 1951, but Draper and Adler have been earning $100,000 per year and are unable to obtain further bookings; Adler will move with his family to London in 1952 (seeRed Channels, 1950).
Civil war looms in Korea, reports a UN Commission September 2 (see 1948). North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung asks Soviet premier Josef Stalin for help in taking over South Korea; Stalin rejects the request (but see 1950).
Anticommunist editorials in a Peekskill, N.Y., newspaper lead to violence that forces cancellation of a Paul Robeson concert in a field outside town, the concert is held September 4 with Robeson, folk singer Pete Seeger, and other performers, but anti-black, anti-Semitic rowdies throw stones at the concert-goers as they leave, smashing heads and breaking car windows as police stand by without interfering.
Minnesota politician (Helen) Eugenie Anderson (née Moore), 40, is named ambassador to Denmark October 12 and becomes the first U.S. woman ambassador; Washington, D.C., hostess Perle Mesta (née Skirvin), 59, wins appointment as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, where she will serve until 1953. Her father made a fortune in Texas oil, her late husband did likewise with a Pittsburgh machine company, she herself was active in Oklahoma politics and the women's rights movement in the 1930s, switched from the GOP to the Democratic Party, and attached herself to an obscure U.S. senator from Missouri named Truman. Asked at her first staff meeting how she wants to be addressed, she replies, "You can call me Madame Minister."
President Truman pledges continued U.S. support of the United Nations October 24 in ceremonies dedicating the new UN site at New York.
Former U.S. secretary of state Edward R. Stettinius Jr. dies at Greenwich, Conn., October 31 at age 49.
Washington imposes stringent controls November 8 on export of all strategic commodities to prevent reshipment to Soviet bloc countries.
New Zealand voters oust the Labour Party after 15 years in power. Prime Minister Peter Fraser, now 65, has held office since 1940 but discontent with economic controls and Fraser's legislation for peacetime conscription have combined to unseat his party.
Australia's prime minister Joseph Benedict "Ben" Chifley tries to nationalize private banks, his Labour Party loses at the polls in December, and former prime minister Robert Gordon Menzies, now 54, heads a new Liberal Party government that will remain in power until 1966.
The Democratic wing of Paraguay's Colorado Party secures the presidency for Asunción-born foreign minister Federico Chávez, 68, who takes office September 1 following a period of political turmoil (see 1947). He will be officially elected to a 3-year term in mid-July of next year and reelected in 1954 (but see Stroessner, 1954).
The Geneva Conventions adopted August 12 revise the conventions of 1864, 1907, and 1929. They provide for "free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing, and tonics intended for children under 15, expectant mothers, and maternity cases" in event of war but do not specifically outlaw sieges, blockades, or "resource denial" operations and do not address conflicts that are partly internal and partly international. More than 185 nations will eventually sign the conventions (see Vietnam, 1962).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that "security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police—which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment—is basic to a free society," but the 6-to-3 decision handed down June 27 in the case of Wolf v. Colorado holds that the exclusionary rule in the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments does not extend to state courts, and while evidence seized illegally is inadmissible in federal courts it may be used in state courts; about half the states will adopt the rule in the 1950s (see 1961).
A South African apartheid program takes effect in June under terms of the South African Citizenship Act (see 1948). The new government of Prime Minister Daniel F. Malan regards blacks as inferior; the act suspends automatic granting of citizenship to Commonwealth immigrants after 5 years and bans marriages between Europeans (meaning whites) and non-Europeans (meaning blacks or "coloreds") (see 1951; 1960).
China, Indonesia, and Costa Rica grant women the right to vote on the same basis as men. Chile grants woman suffrage after a long campaign, but women must vote separately from men.
SOS Children Villages have their beginnings in a community founded in Austria's Tyrol region by local humanitarian Hermann Gmeiner, 29, whose enterprise will grow to have more than 225 villages in 85 countries on five continents to house and care for abandoned or orphaned children.
A communist-bloc Council for Mutual Economic Assistance created January 18 at Moscow tries to develop economic cooperation between the Soviet Union and her satellites. Poland joins a week later.
Congress creates the General Services Administration (GSA) to serve as an independent federal agency with responsibilities for managing government property and records economically and efficiently. The GSA will construct and operate buildings, distribute supplies, stockpile critical materials, and dispose of government surpluses.
United Automobile Workers (UAW) at General Motors plants accept a slight wage cut as a business recession produces a decline in the cost of living (see 1948). UAW activist Victor Reuther suffers wounds to his face, throat, and shoulder May 24 when a police officer fires a shotgun through a window of his Detroit home.
U.S. unemployment reaches 5.9 percent, up from 3.8 percent last year, and Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average falls to 161 at midyear, down from 193 a year earlier, but while most consumer prices drop, housing and healthcare costs increase.
A Foreign Assistance bill enacted by Congress April 19 authorizes additional U.S. aid amounting to $5.43 billion for the European Recovery Program (see 1948; Marshall Plan, 1947).
Bank of America chairman A. P. Giannini dies at his San Mateo, Calif., home June 3 at age 79. The BofA's assets have grown to $5 billion, making it the largest U.S. commercial bank.
British dock workers strike in June and close ports.
Parliament passes a nationalization act that creates the Iron and Steel Corp. of Great Britain, fulfilling a pledge by the Labour government (see BISF, 1934). The Iron and Steel Control division of Britain's Ministry of Supply during the war was staffed almost entirely by people from the Iron and Steel Federation, who directed wartime production (see 1953).
Britain devalues the pound September 18 from $4.03 to $2.80. Most European nations follow the British move and devalue their currencies. Nationalization of Britain's iron and steel industries takes effect November 24.
Australian coal workers strike June 27 and stay out until mid-August, when emergency legislation authorizes the government to send in troops to work the mines.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank extends a $20 million loan to Yugoslavia September 8 to help the Tito government resist Soviet domination (see 1948).
U.S. coal workers strike September 19, President Truman invokes the Taft-Hartley Act September 30, the miners refuse to obey the injunction, and 20 UMW leaders are cited for contempt. They win acquittal and the strike is settled.
A new minimum wage act signed into law by President Truman October 26 amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, raising the minimum hourly wage from 40¢ to 75¢ for certain industries engaged in interstate commerce (see 1955).
U.S. steelworkers return to work November 11 after a 42-day strike. The 500,000 workers win company-paid pensions but no wage boosts.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 200.13, up from 177.30 at the end of the 1948 and its first close above 200 in 10 years.
The New York jeweler Harry Winston Inc. purchases the jewelry collection of the late Washington, D.C., socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean, who died 2 years ago at age 60. Included is the famed Hope Diamond (see 1958), the 94.8-carat Star of the East diamond, the 15-carat Star of the South diamond, a nine-carat green diamond, and a 31-carat diamond that will become known as the McLean diamond. Winston sends the collection on a 9-year goodwill tour of the United States.
Seven major oil companies control 90 percent of world petroleum reserves outside the United States and the Soviet bloc territories: Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of California, Gulf Oil, the Texas Company, Socony-Vacuum, Royal Dutch-Shell, and Anglo-Iranian control 88 percent of crude oil production, 77 percent of refining capacity, 85 percent of cracking capacity, two-thirds of all privately owned tankers, and every important pipeline.
Jean Paul Getty obtains a concession for his Pacific Western Co. to drill for petroleum in the Neutral Zone established in 1924 between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Now 56, the Minneapolis-born oil magnate inherited $15 million, made his first million by age 23, and has been battling for years to gain control of the Tide Water Associated Oil Co., owned largely by Standard Oil of New Jersey. The desert in his new concession will turn out to cover one of the world's largest petroleum reserves, and the oil will make Getty the world's richest man (see 1951).
Hughes Tool Co. supplies more than 75 percent of all bits used in oil drilling anywhere in the free world. Hughes leases the drills in the United States to keep dulled bits from being re-tipped and sold at lower prices (see 1908). Mounted on three cones, the Hughes rock bit can drill into rock formations at speeds of up to 180 feet per hour, its only significant competitor is Reed Roller Bit Co., and Reed must pay Hughes a 15 percent royalty on every rock bit it supplies to drillers.
An Air Force XB-47 jet bomber sets a new U.S. transcontinental speed record February 8, crossing the country in 3 hours, 46 minutes at an average speed of 607 miles per hour (see Doolittle, 1922; Glenn, 1957).
Air Force pilots flying the B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II complete the first nonstop round-the-world flight March 2 (see 1947). They have refueled in midair and arrive at Fort Worth, Tex., after a 23,452-mile flight of 94 hours, 1 minute.
The de Havilland Comet flown in Britain is the first civil jet transport (see 1948; transatlantic service, 1958).
Chicago's O'Hare Airport receives that name November 8 to honor the late Lieut. Commander Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare, U.S. Navy, who earned a Congressional Medal of Honor in 1942 for shooting down five Japanese bombers and crippling a sixth to save the carrier Lexington but died in 1943 at age 29. Originally called Orchard Place, O'Hare will surpass Chicago's Midway Airport by 1961 to become the world's busiest air travel facility; by 1972 it will be handling 2,000 flights per day and a decade later will have to expand once again.
Pacific Southwest Airlines is founded to provide intra-state service in California. It will grow by 1978 to be the nation's largest commuter airline, serving Burbank, Fresno, Hollywood, Lake Tahoe, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Monterey, Oakland, Ontario, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Stockton with more than 200 flights per day at competitive fares.
The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's California Zephyr begins service March 20 on the 50-hour run between Chicago and San Francisco (see 1934). Using tracks of the Burlington, the Rio Grande, and the Western Pacific railroads, it has sleeping cars, a dining car, hostesses ("Zephyrettes"), and five glass-canopied "Vista-Dome" coaches for sightseeing on every train.
A Japanese train wreck August 17 kills three persons. Someone has removed a length of rail, and 20 workers are arrested on charges of sabotage; 14 are Communist Party members. The government was about to announce a mass layoff of workers and uses the incident to suppress the railway workers' union; it is widely believed that U.S. occupation authorities are involved, and Japan's Supreme Court will exonerate the convicted men, but not until 1963.
A federal court convicts General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone Tire, and other companies of criminal conspiracy to supplant electric transit lines with gasoline or diesel buses (see 1932; 1936; 1938). GM has replaced more than 100 electric transit systems in 45 cities with GM buses and will continue this program despite the court action (the company is fined $5,000, its treasurer $1) (see 1955).
U.S. auto production reaches 5.1 million and catches up after 20 years with the 1929 record.
Nash Motor Co. introduces front-seat lap belts bolted to its car frames as optional equipment (see Studebaker, 1964).
Germany's Volkswagen resumes large-scale commercial production and introduces its cars into the United States at $800 per vehicle, but only two of the odd-looking "beetles" are sold in America (see 1947; 1953; 1955).
Saab-Scania AB is founded in Sweden to compete with the 22-year-old Volvo group, but its chief initial focus is on aircraft engines, not motorcars (see 1948).
The Huffy Convertible bicycle introduced by Huffman Manufacturing Co. is the first bike to bear the name Huffy (see 1936). Its rear training wheels with foot steps revolutionize the children's market and will help make Huffy the world's largest-selling brand of bicycle.
The Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC) introduced by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly of 1946 ENIAC fame stores information on magnetic tape rather than on punched cards. The two established a manufacturing company last year and will sell their Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. next year to Remington Rand (see Sperry Rand, 1955). By 1966 Eckert will have received 85 patents, most of them for electronic inventions.
Nebraska-born MIT electrical engineer Jay W. (Wright) Forrester, 31, devises a memory system that replaces electrostatic tubes and stores information in three dimensions. His random-access magnetic cell will prove far superior to the slow, unreliable storage systems that have retarded development of computers (see Manchester Mark I, 1948) Forrester and Kenneth Olsen will assemble the first real-time computer in 1951 and call it the Whirlwind.
Glasgow-born biochemist Alexander (Robertus) Todd, 41, at Cambridge synthesizes adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a nucleoside essential to energy utilization by living organisms. He also synthesizes flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) (see 1954).
King Solomon's Ring: New Light on Animal Ways (Er redete mit dem Vich, dem Vögeln und Fischen: King Solomon's Ring) by Austrian zoologist and theologist Konrad (Zacharias) Lorenz, 46, describes his discovery of the "imprinting" by which hatchling Greylag geese and other birds learn to recognize substitute parents early in life. Having founded the science of ethology (the study of animal behavior in the wild), Lorenz shows that Darwinian natural selection processes operate not only in shaping physical form but also in determining behavioral characteristics.
Zoologist Karl von Frisch establishes the fact that honeybees employ the sun as a compass through their perception of polarized light (see 1919). Now 62, he will find that they can orient themselves even when the sun is not visible, evidently by recalling patterns of polarization in the sky at various times of day and locating previously encountered landmarks.
Nobel chemist Friedrich K. R. Bergius dies at Buenos Aires March 30 at age 64, having helped the German war effort with his method for making gasoline from coal and heavy oil (and ways to break down wood molecules to produce alcohol and sugar); Nobel physiologist August Krogh dies at Copenhagen September 13 at age 74.
Biochemists Philip S. Hench and Edward C. Kendall show motion pictures early in the year of patients who have been treated with the cortisone compound ACTH and are able to run after being bedridden for years with arthritis (see 1948). Although the steroid hormone does not cure rheumatoid arthritis and can have major side effects, it can often alleviate its acute pain and will prove useful also in treating Addison's disease, asthma, lupus, rheumatic fever, some serious skin diseases, typhoid fever, and other conditions, but its most enduring long-term use will be as a research tool (see synthesis, 1951).
Pfizer biochemists develop the antibiotic oxytetracycline; Pfizer will be awarded a patent on the drug in 1955, but American Cyanamid's Lederle Laboratories will introduce tetracycline under the trade name Achromycin in 1953 and maintain a large share of the market.
Parke, Davis introduces the antibiotic chloramphenicol under the trade name Chloromycetin; it is hailed as the first major breakthrough against typhoid fever.
Selman Waksman isolates the antibiotic neomycin (see streptomycin, 1943).
Microbiologist Félix d'Hérelle dies at Paris April 25 at age 75, having discovered the bateriophage, a virus that eats bacteria.
A paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia in September by Melbourne psychiatrist John F. J. (Frederick Joseph) Cade, 37, pioneers use of lithium to treat manic depression. Suspecting that the bipolar disorder might be caused by a hormone, Cade collected urine from patients, injected it into guinea pigs, saw that the test animals had seizures, isolated sodium urate, found that animals injected with lithium urate became lethargic rather than manic, obtained the same result with lithium carbonate, and determined that the compound could suppress mood swings that can sometimes be violent. Two articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in March have demonstrated lithium toxicity, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will ban use of lithium until 1970, but while it can have unpleasant side effects, lithium therapy will revolutionize treatment of bipolar disorder.
Bombay (Mumbai) cardiologist Rustom Jal Vakil, 38, reports in the prestigious British Heart Journal that he has lowered blood pressure effectively using powdered root from the tropical plant Rauwolfia serpentina (see 1952).
North Carolina evangelist Billy Graham, 31, gains prominence with a tent crusade at Los Angeles that leads to the conversions of an Olympic track star, a noted gambler, and a notorious underworld syndicate figure. Graham has just become first vice president of Youth for Christ International.
Greco-Armenian mystic and philosopher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (originally George S. Georgiades) dies at Neuilly, outside Paris, October 29 at age 77 (approximate).
Eleanor Roosevelt expresses support in her newspaper column for pending legislation that would provide $300 million in federal aid to public schools. New York's Cardinal Spellman, 60, opposes the measure because it would exclude parochial and other private schools, he calls Mrs. Roosevelt's position "unworthy of an American mother," but Mrs. Roosevelt immediately reiterates her support of the Establishment clause in the Constitution separating Church and state.
Chiba University is founded at Tokyo.
Tokyo University admits women for the first time since its founding in 1877.
Harvard Law School announces October 9 that it will begin admitting women.
Radio Free Europe begins beaming world news to listeners behind the Iron Curtain from an operations base at Munich (see Voice of America, 1948). Gen. Lucius D. Clay has helped start the organization and is chairman of the board; he asks for private contributions to help fund its broadcasts, but nearly all of its support comes from the CIA.
Pacifica Radio has its beginnings in the FM station KPFA that goes on the air at Berkeley, Calif., April 15. Kansas City-born pacifist Lewis Hill, 29, spent the war in a camp for conscientious objectors; moved from Washington, D.C., to the Bay Area 3 years ago; and pioneers in listener-sponsored radio, with on-air pledge drives in place of commercial sponsors to free it from dependence on advertisers who might object to some of its views. The station is housed in a Victorian house, where on-air hosts must sometimes speak over the sound of bathroom plumbing noises (see 1957).
The 15-year-old Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposes a "Fairness Doctrine" on radio and television stations to "afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance." Many U.S. cities and towns have only one or two radio and TV stations, and their owners have licenses that give them monopoly power to deny airtime to viewpoints they oppose. The FCC prohibited editorializing on the radio 8 years ago, some station owners will simply stifle discussion of controversial issues lest they be obliged to air dozens of different views, and right-wing elements will be especially outspoken in their attacks on the doctrine (see 1981).
The Department of Justice charges American Telephone & Telegraph with having monopolized the telephone instrument market in violation of the Sherman Act of 1890. AT&T may be a "natural monopoly," the department says, but the manufacture of telephones is by no means a natural monopoly. It asks the company to break its Western Electric division into three separate companies so as to permit competition in telephone instrument production and installation.
The Intertype Fotosetter Photographic Line Composing Machine installed by Intertype Corp. of Brooklyn, N.Y., at the Rochester, N.Y., plant of Stecher-Traung Lithograph is the first typesetting machine to dispense with metal type (see Mergenthaler, 1884; Photon process, 1953).
Catholic Worker cofounder Peter Maurin dies on a communal farm outside Newburgh, N.Y., May 15 at age 72.
Paris-Match resumes publication under that name following the exoneration of Match publisher and industrialist Jean Prouvost, who had been charged with treason at the end of World War II (see Prouvost, 1938). Replacing the old L'Illustration that was published from 1843 to 1944 but was discredited during the German occupation, the weekly employs a pictorial news-and-current-events format modeled on LIFE magazine, featuring photographic essays and profiles, interviews with government officials, and an emphasis on consumer products, entertainment, and fashion that will gain it wide circulation.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine begins publication November 1 after Allied Occupation authorities lift a licensing requirement for German newspapers. The late Adolf Hitler closed down the prewar Frankfurter Zeitung in 1943 and a consortium of journalists from the old paper have started the new one, announcing that "The truth of the facts must be sacred." They promise that the paper will maintain "strict objectivity in its coverage," "fair treatment of opposing viewpoints," and preserve "the ideals of freedom and justice, which our profession shall serve."
Nonfiction: The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who says liberalism must stand between totalitarian extremes of communism and fascism; The Second Sex (Le Deuxième Sexe) by French philosopher and novelist Simone de Beauvoir, 41, will be the bible of feminists (an English translation will appear in 1953). De Beauvoir condemns marriage as an "obscene bourgeois institution" that keeps women from true individuality; Male and Female by Margaret Mead; The Need for Roots (L'Enracinement) by the late French writer Simone Weil; The Mediterranean and The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by French historian (Paul Achille) Fernand Braudel, 47, who focuses on the lives of ordinary people (he studied before the war under Lucien Febvre and wrote the first drafts of his books from memory during his 5 years in a German prisoner-of-war camp); The Mature Mind by City College of New York philosophy professor Harry A. Overstreet, 72; American Freedom and Catholic Power by Ohio-born atheist Paul Blanshard, now 57, who attended Union Theological Seminary, became a Congregationalist minister in 1917, renounced Christianity a year later as fraudulent, and now creates a storm of controversy by saying that nuns are relics of "an age when women allegedly enjoyed subjection and reveled in self-abasement," claiming that Roman Catholic influence represents a political power that is dictating human behavior and social policy in America, and decrying demands that parochial schools be given a share of public educational funding.
Historian James Truslow Adams dies at Southport, Conn., May 18 at age 70.
Fiction: The Train Was on Time (Der Zug war puenktlich) (novella) by Cologne-born novelist Heinrich (Theodor) Böll, 31, who has resolved not to let Germans forget their Nazi past; Conjugal Love (L'Amore Coniugale e Altri Racconti) by Alberto Moravia, whose prostitutes are his most sympathetic characters; The House on the Hill (La Casa in Collina) by Cesare Pavese; Iron in the Soul (The Troubled Sleep or La Mort dans l'ame) by Jean-Paul Sartre; The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen; El Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges; The Oasis by Mary McCarthy; The House of Incest by Anaïs Nin; The Sheltering Sky by émigré composer-novelist-poet-translator Paul Bowles, now 38, who has been living at Tangier; A Rage to Live by John O'Hara; The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren is about drug addiction; The Beginning and the End by Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, 38; Point of No Return by John P. Marquand; "No Consultation Today" ("Honjitsu Kyushin") (story) by Masuji Ibuse; The Third Man by Graham Greene; Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, whose book is a chilling projection of a totalitarian state whose authorities exercise mind control ("Big Brother Is Watching You"). Orwell introduces the inverted graffiti "Ignorance Is Strength" and "Freedom Is Slavery" along with such portmanteau words as newspeak, bellyfeel, and doublethink. "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past," says one of Orwell's characters (compare Santayana, 1905); Time of Hope by C. P. Snow; Tournament by Mississippi-born novelist Shelby Foote, 32; Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford; The Moving Target by California-born mystery writer John MacDonald (Kenneth Millar), 33.
Novelist Sigrid Undset dies at Lillehammer, Norway, June 10 at age 67; Margaret Mitchell is killed by a speeding automobile at her native Atlanta August 16 at age 49; Edith A. O. Somerville of Somerville and Ross dies at Castlehaven, County Cork, Ireland, October 8 at age 91; Hervey Allen of a heart attack at his Bonfield Manor, Md., home December 28 at age 60.
Poetry: The Arrivistes by Jamaican-born New York poet Louis Simpson, 26; The Art of Early Wisdom by Kenneth Rexroth; The Labyrinth by Edwin Muir; By Avon River by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle); Hope (La espera) by José María Valverde; Book of Algae (Libro de las algas) by Ignacio Aldecoa; Woman to Man by Judith Wright.
The Library of Congress confers the first Bollingen Prize for Poetry February 20 (see 1948). All but three of the 14 Fellows in American Letters have awarded the $1,000 prize to Ezra Pound for his Pisan Cantos (Garrison Chapin and Karl Shapiro have voted for William Carlos Williams, Paul Green has abstained), news that Pound has won the prize creates a storm of controversy in the press and in Congress, Pound receives his money, but the Library of Congress returns $9,000 to the Bollingen Foundation, whose trustees will hereafter grant the money to the Yale University Library so that the prize may be continued.
Painting: The Kitchen by Pablo Picasso; Leisure, Homage to David (Les Loisirs, hommage à David) by Fernand Léger; Evening Sun (Abendsonne) by Emil Nolde; Beginning (triptych) by Max Beckmann, who moved to New York 2 years ago; Number 2 by Jackson Pollock; Onement III by New York abstract expressionist Barnett (originally Baruch) Newman, 44; Buildings at Lebanon by Charles Sheeler; Somerset Maugham (expressionistic portrait) by Graham Sutherland. Walt Kuhn dies of a perforated stomach ulcer at White Plains, N.Y., July 12 at age 71 (he has been mentally deranged for about a year); José Clemente Orozco dies at Mexico City September 7 at age 65; copper heir-art patron Solomon R. Guggenheim at Port Washington, N.Y., November 3 at age 88 (see museum, 1959); Baron James Ensor dies at Ostend November 19 at age 89 (a recluse since 1900, he was raised to the peerage by Albert of the Belgians in 1929).
Sculpture: Rhythmic Form (wood) by Barbara Hepworth.
Theater: Corruption in the Palace of Justice (Corruzione al palazzo di giustizia) by Ugo Betti 1/7 at Rome's Teatro della Arti; Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 2/10 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Lee J. Cobb as salesman Willie Loman, Mildred Dunnock, Arthur Kennedy, Cameron Mitchell, 742 perfs.; Detective Story by Sidney Kingsley 3/23 at New York's Hudson Theater, with Ralph Bellamy, Les Tremayne, Alexander Scourby, Jean Adair, Troy, N.Y.-born actress Maureen Stapleton, 23, Joseph Wiseman, New York-born ingénue Lee Grant (originally Lyova Haskell Rosenthal), 21, 581 perfs.; Romulus the Great (Romulus der Grosse) by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 28, 4/25 at Basel's Stadttheater; Story of a Staircase (Historia de una escalara) by Spanish playwright Antonio Buero Vallejo, 33, 10/14 at Madrid's Teatro Español; Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy by Sean O'Casey 12/10 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne; The Just Assassins (Les Justes) by Albert Camus 12/15 at the Théâtre Hebertot, Paris.
President Truman revives the U.S.O. February 19 (see 1942). Comedian Bob Hope entertained servicemen involved in the Berlin Airlift last year and has been a driving force in restarting the organization, but its budget of $1.5 million is less than half what it was 8 years ago (see 1950).
The Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting founded at New York by actress-teacher Adler, now 48, will educate players, including Marlon Brando, in the (Stanislavski) Method system of acting.
Playwright-poet-librettist Maurice Maeterlinck dies in his villa at Nice May 6 at age 86; playwright Thomas Heggen is found dead in his bathtub at New York May 19 at age 29, having taken sleeping pills, dozed off, and drowned; actor Harry Davenport dies at Los Angeles August 9 at age 83; Dame Irene Vanbrugh at London November 30 at age 76; playwright Philip Barry of a heart attack at his Park Avenue, New York, apartment December 3 at age 53.
Radio: Dragnet 7/7 on NBC with Santa Monica-born actor Jack Webb, 29, as Sgt. Joe ("Just the facts, ma'am") Friday, Los Angeles Police Department (to 1956); Father Knows Best 8/25 on NBC with Robert Young as Jim Anderson (to 1954).
Television: The Goldbergs 1/17 on CBS is the first TV situation comedy. Derived from the radio show first aired in 1929, it stars Molly Berg, now 50, will continue until late June 1951, and be followed by dozens of "sitcoms"; Quiz Kids 3/1 on NBC (on CBS from 1/53 to 9/27/1956); The Martin and Lewis Show 4/3 on NBC with Steubenville, Ohio-born singer Dean Martin (originally Dino Crocetti), 31, Newark, N.J.-born manic comic Jerry Lewis (originally Joseph Levitch), 23 (to 1952); Candid Camera on ABC with New York-born U.S. Signal Corps veteran Allen Funt, 34, who started Candid Microphone on ABC radio in 1947, moved it to TV last year, and has changed its name; Mr. I. Magination 5/29 on CBS with Paul Tripp as host (to 6/28/1952); Captain Video and His Video Rangers 6/27 on Dumont with Jack Vance as the Guardian of the Safety of the World, an electronic wizard whose 20-minute episodes aboard his rocketship Galaxy are broadcast live daily (to 1955); The Magic Cottage 7/18 on Dumont TV (daytime) with host Pat Meikle (to 9/12/1952); The Magic Clown 9/11 on NBC (daytime) with Zovella (to 6/27/1954); The Lone Ranger 9/15 on ABC with Clayton Moore (later John Hart), Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels (originally Harold J. Smith), 36 (as Tonto) in a television version of the old radio show (to 9/12/1957); The Life of Riley 10/4 on NBC with Jackie Gleason in a series written by Sumner Arthur Long, 28 (to 3/28/50). NBC will revive the series early in 1953 with William Bendix in the title role (to 8/22/1958, 217 episodes).
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences confers its first Emmy Awards.
Films: George Cukor's Adam's Rib with Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne; Robert Rossen's All the King's Men with Philadelphia-born actor (William) Broderick Crawford, 37, Mercedes McCambridge; William Wyler's The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland, Ralph Richardson, Montgomery Clift; Ken Annakin, Arthur Crabtree, Harold French, and Ralph Smart's Quartet with Basil Radford, Mai Zetterling, Ian Fleming, London-born actor Dirk Bogarde (originally Derek Niven van den Bogaerd), 28, Naunton Wayne; Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog with Toshiro Mifune; Carol Reed's The Third Man with Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Valli; Henry King's Twelve O'Clock High with Gregory Peck, Gary Merrill, Ohio-born actor Dean Jagger (originally Dean Jeffries), 43; Alexander Mackendrick's Whisky Galore! (in America, Tight Little Island) with Basil Radford, Joan Greenwood, 28. Also: Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol with Ralph Richardson, Michele Morgan, Bobby Henrey; Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy with Peggy Cummins, John Dall; Lloyd Bacon's It Happens Every Spring with Ray Milland, Canton, Ohio-born actress Jean Peters, 22, Paul Douglas; Jacques Tati's Jour de Fête with Tati (Jacques Tatischeff), 41; Vincente Minnelli's Madame Bovary with Jennifer Jones, James Mason, Oklahoma-born actor Van (originally Emmett Evan) Heflin, 38, French actor Louis Jourdan (originally Louis Gendre), 28; Elia Kazan's Pinky with Jeanne Crain as a light-skinned woman who passes for white, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters; Thorold Dickinson's Queen of Spades with Dame Edith Evans, now 61, in her only film role, Anton Walbrook; Max Ophuls's The Reckless Moment with James Mason, Joan Bennett; Robert Wise's The Set-Up with Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter; John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon with John Wayne, Joanne Dru; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Small Back Room with David Farrar, Jack Hawkins, 38; Sam Wood's The Stratton Story with James Stewart, June Allyson; Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night with San Jose, Calif.-born actor Farley Granger, 24, Cathy O'Donnell; Raoul Walsh's White Heat with James Cagney, St. Louis-born actress Virginia Mayo (originally Virginia Jones), 29; Nicholas Ray's A Woman's Secret with Maureen O'Hara, Gloria Graham, Melvyn Douglas.
Ingrid Bergman shocks moviegoers August 5 by announcing that she is divorcing her physician husband, Peter Lindstrom, and abandoning her movie career; Bergman has been living with Italian director Robert Rosselini and in 6 months will bear his son Robertino out of wedlock, creating a furor.
Director Victor Fleming suffers a heart attack on a friend's ranch near Cottonwood, Ariz., and dies in an ambulance January 6 at age 64; Wallace Beery dies of heart disease at his Beverly Hills home April 15 at age 63; silent film star Richard Dix of heart disease at Hollywood September 20 at age 55; director Sam Wood of a heart attack at Hollywood September 22 at age 66; actress Maria Ouspenskaya at Hollywood December 3 at age 62 of a stroke after suffering burns in a fire started by smoking in bed; director Sidney Olcott dies of cancer at Hollywood December 16 at age 76; animated film pioneer Leon Schlesinger at Los Angeles December 26 at age 65.
Hollywood musical: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's On the Town with Kelly, Frank Sinatra, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
Stage musicals: South Pacific 4/7 at the Majestic Theater, with Ezio Pinza, Mary Martin, Myron McCormick, Juanita Hall, Betta St. John, William Tabbert, Chattanooga-born Virginia Martin, 29, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, book based on James Michener's tales of U.S. military personnel in World War II posts, songs that include "Some Enchanted Evening," "Younger than Springtime," "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy," "This Nearly Was Mine," "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair," "A Cockeyed Optimist," "Honey Bun," "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," "Dites-moi Pourquoi," "There Is Nothing Like a Dame," "Happy Talk," "Bali Ha'i," 1,925 perfs.; Miss Liberty 6/15 at the Imperial Theater, with Eddie Albert, Maria Karnilova, Dody Goodman, Philip Borneuf, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, songs that include "Let's Take an Old Fashioned Walk," 308 perfs.; Her Excellency 6/22 at the London Hippodrome, with Cicely Courtneidge as the British ambassador to a South American country, songs by Manning Sherwin and Harry Par-Davis; Lost in the Stars 10/30 at the Music Box Theater, with Todd Duncan, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, book based on Alan Paton's 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country, 273 perfs.; Texas, L'il Darlin' 11/25 at New York's Mark Hellinger Theater, with Loring Smith, book by John Whedon and Sam Moore, music by Robert Emmett Dolan, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, 293 perfs.; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 12/8 at the Ziegfeld Theater, with Carol Channing as Lorelei Lee, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Leo Robin, book based on the 1925 novel, songs that include "A Little Girl from Little Rock," "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," "Bye Bye Baby," 740 perfs.
Willie Howard dies broke after a brief illness at New York January 14 at age 62, reportedly having gambled away more than $1 million; librettist Fred Thompson at his native London April 10 at age 65; George Moran of Moran and Mack fame following a stroke at Oakland, Calif., August 1 at age 67; Al Shean of Gallagher and Shean fame at New York August 12 at age 81; Abraham Minsky of burlesque fame at New York September 5 at age 68; Bill "Bojangles" Robinson of a chronic heart condition at New York November 25 at age 71 (he has earned more than $2 million in his lifetime but dies penniless. His body lies in state at a Harlem armory, schools are closed, and thousands line the street to catch a glimpse of his funeral bier).
Opera: The Pit (dramatic scene for Tenor, Bass, Women's Chorus, and Orchestra) by Elisabeth Lutyens 4/24 at Palermo; Let's Make an Opera 6/14 at Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall, with music by Benjamin Britten, libretto by Eric Crazier; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf makes her Salzburg Festival debut as the Countess Almaviva in Mozart's 1786 opera Le Nozze di Figaro. She will continue performing at Salzburg nearly every year until 1964.
Composer Richard Strauss dies at Vienna September 8 at age 85.
Ballet: Beauty and the Beast 12/20 at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, with music by the late Maurice Ravel, choreography by South African-born dancer-choreographer John Cranko, 22.
Looking at the Dance by Tientsin-born New York poet-dance critic Edwin (Orr) Denby, 46, will be widely read.
The first Aspen Music Festival opens at the Colorado ski town, whose summer season will grow to account for 40 percent of its annual income.
First performances: Spring Symphony for Soprano, Alto, and Tenor Soli, Mixed Chorus, Boys' Choir, and Orchestra by Benjamin Britten 7/9 at Amsterdam; Concerto Symphonique for Piano and Orchestra by Ernest Bloch 9/3 at the Edinburgh Festival; Phantasy for Violin and Piano Accompaniment by Arnold Schoenberg 9/13 at Los Angeles; Concerto for Organ, Brasses, and Woodwinds by Paul Hindemith 11/14 at Boston's Symphony Hall.
CBS introduces improved long-playing vinyl plastic phonograph records (see RCA, 1946; Goldmark, 1948). RCA introduces small 45 rpm LPs that require large spindles. Stereo components (amplifiers, turntables, speakers) enjoy a sales boom. The first LP record catalog is published in October by Cambridge, Mass., record shop proprietor William Schwann, whose 26-page listing of 674 entries from 11 companies will grow in 25 years to list some 50,000 LPs in a book of more than 250 pages.
The People's Republic of China adopts as its national anthem a song written during the war against Japan 6 years ago; Hebei Province songwriter Cao Huoxing, 25, has added new lyrics to those written by Tian Han and Nie Erh, and the song "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" has become familiar to hundreds of millions of Chinese.
Popular songs: "The Hokey Pokey" by Detroit-born songwriter Larry Laprise, 36; "Melodie d'Amour" by French songwriter Henri Salvador; "Bonaparte's Retreat" by Pee Wee King; "Mañana" by former Benny Goodman guitarist Dave Barbour and his wife, Peggy Lee; "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Bob Hilliard; "I Don't Care If the Sun Don't Shine" by Mack David; "Scarlet Ribbons (for Her Hair)" by New York composer Evelyn Danzig, 47, lyrics by Jack Segal (the song will languish until Segal mentions it to Harry Belafonte in 1954); "Mona Lisa" by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans; "Huckle-Buck" by Andy Gibson, lyrics by Roy Alfred; "Daddy's Little Girl" by Bobby Burke and Horace Gerlah; "The Harry Lime Theme" by Anton Karas (for the film The Third Man); "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by U.S. songwriter Johnny Marks, 40, who has adapted a verse written in 1939 by his brother-in-law Robert May for a Montgomery Ward promotional comic book. Former Portsmouth, Va., church choir singer Ruth Brown (née Weston), 21, records "So Long"/"It's Raining" to begin a notable rhythm & blues career.
Mahalia Jackson records "Let the Power of the Holy Ghost Fall On Me." "Bricktop" opens a club in Rome's Via Veneto with backing from Doris Duke (see 1944).
Bandleader-lyricist Eddie De Lange dies at Los Angeles July 15 at age 45; folk singer-composer Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter returns from a European concert tour and dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS) at New York December 6 at age 61.
Wilson Sporting Goods agrees May 29 to sponsor formation of a Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA); it will become an officially chartered organization next year. Georgia-born golfer (Mae) Louise Suggs, 25, is a founding member of the LPGA and wins the U.S. Women's Open, finishing 14 strokes ahead of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
Golfer Sam Snead wins his first Masters Tournament, his second PGA title, and the Vardon Trophy that he will win again next year.
Georgia-born prizefighter Ezzard Charles, 27, gains the world heavyweight championship June 22 by winning a 15-round decision over Joe Walcott at Chicago following the retirement of Joe Louis March 1.
Ted Schroeder wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Louise Brough in women's singles; Pancho Gonzalez wins in men's singles at Forest Hills, Mrs. duPont in women's singles.
The New York Yankees win the World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers 4 games to 1.
The whirlpool bathtub appliance invented by Italian-born California engineer Candido Jacuzzi, 46, relieves the pain of his 15-month-old son Kenny, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. Candido and his brothers built farm equipment before turning to production of airplane propellors during the war; his brother Ray will design the first self-contained whirlpool bath (see 1968).
Silly Putty is introduced by New Haven, Conn., advertising man Peter C. L. Hodgson, 37, who has discovered a substance developed by General Electric researchers looking for a viable synthetic rubber. The useless silicone substance can be molded like soft clay, stretched like taffy, bounced like a rubber ball, and can pick up printed matter when pressed down on newsprint and transfer it, but the stuff has no market until Hodgson borrows $147 to buy a batch from GE, hires a Yale student to separate it into one-ounce globs, packages it in clear compact plastic cases at $1 each, advertises it in a catalogue of toys he is preparing for a local store, and finds that Silly Putty is an immediate success.
New York's Saks Fifth Avenue introduces Boaters—nylon diaper covers that presage disposable diapers. Invented by Connecticut housewife Marion O'Brien (née Donovan), 32, the covers hold moisture in while allowing damp diapers to "breathe." Donovan has experimented in her attic with surplus cloth from nylon parachutes and also sells her product in packages to nurses and physicians at $1.95 each, but the cover is cumbersome, requires pins to keep it in place, and costs a discouraging 10¢ per diaper. O'Brien will nevertheless sell her patent rights for $1 million in 1952, and Boaters will be promoted as the first mass-market, moisture-proof, disposable diaper (see Pampers, 1966).
Revlon introduces "Fire and Ice," a new lipstick and nail enamel that is advertised with a frankly sexual approach in advertisements featuring model Suzy Parker and copy created by ad agency vice president Kay Daly, 29, who will join Revlon in 1961.
The KitchenAid dishwasher introduced by the 52-year-old Hobart Co. will eventually become the largest-selling brand but will have little success until its advertising promotes the idea that machine-washed dishes and glasses are more sanitary than those washed by hand (see Cochrane, 1913).
Lever Brothers introduces Surf laundry detergent with advertising claims that no rinsing is needed after washing. Procter & Gamble responds by advertising that its 3-year-old Tide detergent washes clothes "so miracle clean no rinsing needed." Colgate's Fab echoes the claim.
Clothes rationing ends in Britain.
Naples-born fashion designer Emilio Pucci, 34, opens a shop on Capri that he will follow with shops at Rome, Elba, and Montecatini. An Olympic skier in 1934, Pucci attended college in Georgia and Oregon from 1935 to 1937, served as a bomber pilot in the Italian Air Force during World War II, and last year designed Lord & Taylor's White Stag line for the New York department store. He uses hand-painted silks in vivid colors for sportswear and cruisewear that attract war-weary Europeans and will soon have an international following.
White Collar Crime by criminologist and sociologist Edwin H. Sutherland elaborates on views he first stated when he coined the term 10 years ago.
Congress passes a federal Housing Act July 15 to fund slum-clearance and low-rent public housing projects. Sen. Robert Taft (R. Ohio) has sponsored the legislation. Title I of the new Housing Act encourages municipalities to acquire and resell substandard areas at prices below cost for private redevelopment.
A two-bedroom U.S. house sells typically for $10,000 while a five-bedroom New York apartment rents for $110 per month. A four-bedroom duplex cooperative apartment in the East 60s near Park Avenue with two-story living room and wood-burning fireplace in its 16 x 21-foot library sells for $8,250 with annual maintenance of $2,970, an eight-room co-op on Fifth Avenue in the 70's with three bedrooms, 30 x 17-foot living room, and a view of Central Park sells for $7,434 with annual maintenance of $3,591.
New York architect Philip Johnson puts up a glass house at New Canaan, Conn., to serve as his residence.
Houston's Shamrock Hotel opens March 17 (St. Patrick's Day). Wildcat oil millionaire Glenn McCarthy has built the place.
Philanthropist Laurance S. Rockeller signs over to the federal government more than 30,000 acres abutting Grand Teton National Park (see 1929). Within 5 years he will have built three lodges on the property that his father assembled at Jackson Hole, Wyo. Most of Jackson Hole National Monument will be added to the park next year, extending its size to 484 square miles (nearly 310,000 acres) of lakes (notably the 17-mile-long Jackson Lake on the Snake River), mountains (including 12 peaks 12,000 feet high), forests, meadows, and rivers abounding with herds of antelope, buffalo, and elk roaming wild, trout and other fish, where wildflowers begin blooming in spring even before the snow has melted.
A Sand County Almanac by the late Iowa-born forester-conservationist Aldo Leopold introduces the term "land ethic." Leopold died of a heart attack in April of last year at age 61 while helping a neighbor fight a brush fire; he had bought an abandoned farm in the Wisconsin Dells area in 1935, and his book will slowly gain recognition as a pioneer statement of ecological principles.
An earthquake at Ambato, Ecuador, August 5 registers 6.8 on the Richter scale and leaves 6,000 dead.
The Rust cotton picker of 1927 goes into mass production at Allis-Chalmers Corp. in Milwaukee and Ben Pearson, Inc., in Pine Bluff, Ark., displacing plantation workers in many Southern states and spurring the movement of more blacks and poor whites to northern cities (see 1933).
The Brannan Plan advanced by Denver-born Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. (Franklin) Brannan, 45, proposes to increase food production without taking the profit out of farming. Employing a formula used by sugar beet and wool producers, the plan pays farmers directly the difference between the market price of a commodity and the price needed to give the farmer a fair profit; it gives the consumer the benefit of lower prices produced by greater supply but provides no payment for the 2 percent of farm operators who earn more than $20,000 per year and sell 25 percent of U.S. farm products. Brannan Plan supporters compare it to the minimum wage law of 1938 and Social Security law of 1935, but opponents call it socialism and Congress votes it down. The Price Parity Act passed October 31 supports wheat, corn, cotton, rice, and peanut prices at 90 percent of 1910-1914 levels through 1950, 80 to 90 percent through 1951, 75 to 90 percent on a sliding scale thereafter.
The Big Boy tomato introduced by W. Atlee Burpee & Co. weighs as much as a pound and grows on a compact, bushlike, disease-resistant plant rather than on a sprawling vine. Palestine-born Burpee plant geneticist Oved Shifriss, 34, has directed vegetable research for Burpee at Warminister, Pa., since 1942 and developed new varieties of cucumber, eggplant, muskmelon, and watermelon, but none will have the success of his new tomato variety, which starts a boom in hobby gardening.
Latin America becomes a net grain importer after years as a net exporter, but some regions begin to feel the effects of a "green revolution" (see Borlaug, 1944).
The People's Republic of China undertakes large-scale irrigation projects in Manchuria to permit rice cultivation in a region where sorghum is the staple food for most people, with rice eaten only at birthdays, weddings, funerals, and New Year celebrations. (Sorghum is prepared in the same ways as rice but has been much cheaper. Cornmeal bread is widely eaten by the poor.)
Famine ravages the new People's Republic of China. The nation's cereal grain production falls to 110 million tons, down from 150 million before the war when the population was smaller (see 1952).
FAO chairman John Boyd Orr receives the Nobel Peace Prize and is elevated to the peerage as Lord Boyd Orr of Brechin (see 1945). He observes that "hunger, which is the worst manifestation of poverty, is also the fundamental cause of the rebellion of the Asians against the economic domination of the European powers, a rebellion that cannot be put down with bombs and guns as long as these peoples remain convinced that their hunger and their poverty are sufferings to which they are not condemned by necessity."
Meat, dairy products, and sugar remain in short supply in Britain and sales are restricted, but rationing of chocolate and sweets ends April 24.
South Carolina-born University of Illinois nutritionist William Cumming Rose, 62, shows that eight amino acids are "essential" to human health, a smaller number than is needed by rats. By feeding students and rats diets completely lacking in protein but containing pure amino acids he demonstrates that the body can create the additional amino acids it needs if supplied with isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalinine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Threonine has not been considered an essential amino acid but Rose demonstrates its importance. Since rice is deficient in tryptophan, rice eaters will suffer protein deficiencies unless their diets include a source of threonine (abundant in beans).
The first edible vegetable-protein fiber made from spun soy isolate is introduced (see 1937). Chemical engineer Robert Boyer files for patents on a process for de-hulling soybeans, turning them into flakes, then into oil flakes, milling the flakes into a flour that is more than 50 percent protein, and further processing the flour to make it 90 percent protein (see 1957).
Frozen orange juice concentrate sales continue to soar (see 1948). A story in the June issue of Reader's Digest accelerates the boom (see 1947; 1959). Minute Maid Orange Juice is promoted by crooner Bing Crosby, 46, who acquires 20,000 shares of stock in Vacuum Foods Co. on the advice of John Hay Whitney in exchange for a daily 15-minute radio show that pushes concentrate sales. Vacuum Foods renames itself Minute Maid Corp. (see 1947; 1959).
General Mills and Pillsbury introduce prepared cake mixes, initially in chocolate, gold, and white varieties. Angel food cake and dozens of other flavors will later be added.
Pillsbury inaugurates "Bake-Offs" designed to develop recipes using its flour. Beginning in 1968 contestants will be permitted to use Pillsbury mixes or refrigerated products as well as Pillsbury flour.
Sara Lee Cheese Cake is introduced by Chicago baker Charles Lubin, 44, whose refrigerated cream-cheese product will make his Kitchens of Sara Lee (named after his 9-year-old daughter) one of the world's largest bakeries. Lubin has owned and operated a chain of retail bakeries since 1935 and has decided to expand distribution to supermarkets.
About 70 percent of fluid milk sold in the United States is homogenized, up from 33 percent in 1940. Within a decade it will be almost impossible to obtain non-homogenized milk, which does not keep as well and is more likely to pick up foreign odors. Homogenization will increase consumption of milk and milk products.
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